Exciting rumors have been circulating online that Apple’s iPhone 6 will have a solar powered screen. The screen’s glass would contain cells that use solar power to recharge the device with exposure to sunlight. An informative article on Seeking Alpha explained that a major piece of evidence for this claim is that Apple recently entered into a $578 million contract with GT Advanced Technologies, who sell solar powered Sapphire Glass. Screens on current Apple products are made of Gorilla Glass, which costs $3 per phone. At first GT Advanced Technologies was charging $13-$18 per phone for Glass Sapphire screens, but the company has since reduced the price to $3-$5 per phone, which likely contributed to the successful contract between the two companies. The author of the article, Matt Margolis, used the following fact checklist to substantiate his claims. It seems like the iPhone 6 will be powered by a sustainable energy form and be super efficient to charge!
- Apple filed solar patents that will allow them to power their electronic devices directly through solar cells.
- Apple posted and filled a Thin Films Engineer position with solar experience.
- Apple signed a $578m contract with GT Advanced Technologies to provide sapphire materials (sapphire cover screens)
- Apple announced they would be spending $10.5B in capital during fiscal year 2014 including cutting edge lasers.
- Apple recently posted a Manufacturing Design Engineer position that includes “scribing” and “PVD coating” which relate to thin films (solar cells) and lasers.
- Over 100 iPhones have been assembled with sapphire covered displays.
Written by Abigail Fagan, class of 2014
Photo credit: Blake Patterson
Wow! I can’t wait to have the new iPhone 6 in my hands. I hope that they will make use of the solar powered screen.. That will be a great add-on to their features and it would be charged super fast!